New ship - Xenon Rebel (M3)

DeadlyDa · Post by **DeadlyDa** » Wed, 19. Jan 05, 03:15

I've been playing around with a "concept" ship that I could base a whole range of Xenon fighters on. (I really liked ReiAyanami's Xenon ships, but I wanted something that looked a bit more "deadly"...no pun intended.)

I remembered seeing a ship I thought looked very "Xenon-ish", but only recently remembered where I saw it. after checking out the mesh (which I still liked), I realized I would have to start from scratch...since the original model was waaaay to detailed to be used in X2, with over 212K polygons.

The original model was called Xenofighter, done back in 2001 by Mario Bacher. While I have built my model from the ground up...all props to Mario for producing an increadibly detailed model. Here are the credits:

Xenofighter:Mario Bacher
elimgarak@scifi-art.com

So after several days work on 3dMax...I've got the M3 in-game. Here are a few screenshots...

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I intend to do an M5 & M4 on a similar theme.

For now, I am still play-testing my tweaked ships with Mauzi!'s ship rebalance mod, prior to the initial release.

Mercz · Post by **Mercz** » Wed, 19. Jan 05, 03:35

That ship looks pretty nice. Good Job

Galaxy613 · Post by **Galaxy613** » Wed, 19. Jan 05, 03:37

Awesome job!

I really can't wait to see the M4 and M5 versions!

Earthpilot · Post by **Earthpilot** » Wed, 19. Jan 05, 10:57

that is an interesting ship design u made there

wait a minute....
that ship looks familiar...

yap.

It looks similiar to a craft of the tv show "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda".

I think it was seen in Season1 in that episode, when Harper got his brain filled with data from a perseid and a guy (played by Ralf Moeller) wanted to get those data.

correct me if i am wrong, please.

DeadlyDa · Post by **DeadlyDa** » Wed, 19. Jan 05, 16:31

It looks similiar to a craft of the tv show...

Well...to be honest, I don't own a TV. (Never have, never will. However, I do run an 8-station LAN at home, with a mix of WinXP, Win2k, FreeBSD, & Gentoo machines.)

I've been in the IT/IS industry longer than I care to admit (let's just say its more than 3 decades)! My family and I have been residents of the "net", since before there was a net. Anyone remember Gopher (pre-www)?

Anyway, like I said, I found the model on a site on the Web. Perhaps Mario saw the show you mentioned, and did a model based on it.

Regardless, I had to build a new model, mesh by mesh, to get something that could be rendered by the X2 graphics engine.

I take no credit for the art...but the model is an original work.

E.R.Hyland · Post by **E.R.Hyland** » Wed, 19. Jan 05, 19:58

Looks like it has a turret. All thow I like the classic Xenon look no one has add turrets to them.

Are you going to put turrets on all of them (Would be nice.)?

DeadlyDa · Post by **DeadlyDa** » Thu, 20. Jan 05, 00:45

Looks like it has a turret.

The reason I put on a turret was 'cause I found an entry in TCockpits for one. After all, the Xenon fighters are woefully under gunned....and it started me thinking.

My objective for the new version of the Deadly Ship, Station and Galaxy mod is to avoid inventing any new loadouts (in keeping with Mauzi!'s ship balancing mod, which I have permission to use as a base). What I mean by that is, I only use the standard loadouts in TShips (front lasers) or TCockpits. When I saw the entry for SS_COCKPIT_X_REAR_M3...well, that was all it took

Mind you, just 'cause there is an entry in TCockpits, it doesn't mean it is particularly well thought out, or balanced. After all, the M3 rear cockpit for the Pirates (which they don't use in-game) has a GPSG and an IonD

So far, I have found in my play-testing of the Xenon Rebel, that 2 front AHEPTs, and a BHEPT bottom turret, make a pretty fair match for the Nova (which has BHEPTs, IonD, and MD forward, but only a GPAC or MS in the rear). The Nova is still a killer, but the right combat strategy will still see the Rebel prevail about 50% of the time.

Since I am trying very hard to align the performance characteristics of my ships with what Mauzi! has done to the standard X2 ship inventory, I'm afraid that turrets on the Xenon M4 & M5 might be seen as a bit of overkill

Having said that, the concept sketches for the Xenon M4 would sustain a top turret quite nicely. Once I get the new version of my mod published, I might create an alternate set of Xenon ships for the non-Mauzi! version.

E.R.Hyland · Post by **E.R.Hyland** » Thu, 20. Jan 05, 04:21

I use my own balancing in my mod I have it set up so that B&G(HEPT)'s have a greater range then A(HEPT)'s, so freighters can do a good job of defending them selfves, but A(HEPT)'s are faster, so pirate ships can be a real pain if you don't have good shields, and I'd like the Xenon to do that in fact I'd like the Xenon to have top, and bottom 360 double gun turrets so they can shoot at you no matter where you are.

private mofo · Post by **private mofo** » Thu, 20. Jan 05, 20:14

can u send me a link to a free download of 3dMax and some instructions please?

Galaxy613 · Post by **Galaxy613** » Fri, 21. Jan 05, 03:37

heh, I guess that post was before you found out that it costed 4000 Euros.

Though there is a thing called "Gmax" which is a scaled down version of 3DStudio Max, but I don't think the plugin for 3DS will work with it.

private mofo · Post by **private mofo** » Tue, 25. Jan 05, 19:28

thats a large amount of euros for a designer program, but apparently i can get a student discont so i will update u on that one

DeadlyDa · Post by **DeadlyDa** » Tue, 25. Jan 05, 20:04

apparently i can get a student discont so i will update u on that one

...should be around $180 (USD). Make sure you get version 5.1 or 6, since the Egosoft & 3rd party tools don't yet support 3dMax 7.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

New ship - Xenon Rebel (M3)

New ship - Xenon Rebel (M3)